Trigger warnings for this chapter: violence, character death, abuse, xenophobia, references to rape.

The guards, Theta was slowly realising, were really only very simple men. They hadn't signed up for anything like this; when they realised that something had changed, that the Master's power was broken, when they looked out the windows and saw Earth clean and new again, the ones who didn't drop their weapons and surrender were quickly taken care of or pulled to the ground by the ones who had. Two or three of them even switched sides openly, joining the Jones clan in levelling reclaimed weapons at the Master. He was slightly dazed by the fundamental changes made by the universe on a subatomic level and in dimensions the humans didn't leave a shadow in, let alone could sense; during the Last Great Time War, a lot of these sort of changes had happened—after all, the nature of a Time War was that the Web of Time itself was a battlefield and a weapon—and Theta had described it to Fitz near the beginning with no small amount of difficulty.

Imagine, Theta had said (except ey had been the Doctor then, and zie rather than ey), you're having a conversation with a group of people, and then you go to the loo and change your clothes. Your new clothes are almost, but not quite, the same: they're made of a slightly different material and they're a different colour. You're aware of both of these facts and a million more besides, like how the sleeves pinch a bit at your armpits and this shirt is dry-clean only. The people you were talking to will notice, when you return, that you've changed your clothes; weren't you wearing green a moment ago? They do not know that it feels different to wear, they don't know what the exact sort of cotton-poly blend the fabric is. And the people you weren't talking to, people you talk to later, they're not aware that you changed at all. Haven't you always been wearing that?

Fitz had asked what that had to do with a Time War, but zie had been a bit distracted and hadn't replied except to ask Fitz if he would please pull that lever, the green one right there? Thank you, Fitz.

It was a rubbish metaphor anyway, and, oh, ey'd gotten distracted again, hadn't ey? In any case, the Master was distracted by a suddenly rather rougher metaphorical fabric. Theta felt as though ey'd gone from wearing thick, scratchy wool to silk, and was just as distracted emself.

The Master's fingers wrapping themselves in a death grip on eir frills brought em back. Ey could feel his anger and desperation as everything he had thought secured and unchangeable was torn from his grasp, and ey could feel exactly how far he was willing to go to get some semblance of control back.

Ey could very much feel the cold hum of a laser screwdriver against eir temple.

"I think," the Master enunciated carefully, "That you'll all be putting those down right now."

"It's over, Master!" yelled Natalie (it was Natalie, Theta was quite sure, there were just a lot of Joneses). Sam had finally taken her hand away from her mouth while they were clinging to each other in the middle of the hurricane. "You lost, give it up!"

"No," the Master snapped, and Theta could feel the drums now, fast and angry and insane against eir temples. "You can't even comprehend what I can do! I still have a TARDIS," he snarled, digging his nails into Theta's frills so hard they drew blood, cutting off eir protest that she was eir TARDIS. "You think this was about Earth? Keep your miserable little planet, for now. I can have anywhere. Anywhere I choose! So you just stay exactly where you are and I'll consider not putting a mining-intensity laser through dear Theta's skull."

Theta watched miserably as, slowly, the Joneses listened to him. Guns were lowered, knives pulled from boots reluctantly tucked back away. The three or so guards who'd joined them hesitated, kept their weapons up longer; Sam pointedly aimed a handgun at the nearest guard's thigh and they hurriedly stood down.

He would do it. Theta knew that much; he would hold that laser to eir head and drag em into the TARDIS and none of them would stop him because for some reason they thought eir life was worth it and they were wrong. The Master was going to be loose in the universe like this, broken and angry and volatile and Theta couldn't let that happen.

Ey stood stock-still, not as much daring to breathe, and tried eir best to drown out the slightest hint of a plot under fear, hoping the Master wouldn't pay enough attention to notice that it wasn't fear for emself.

One.

Two.

Ey grabbed the Master's screwdriver out of his hand, pulling away from him; his nails bit sharp into eir frills, tearing the flesh as ey twisted out of his grasp. The Master stared at em with shock that hadn't yet morphed into anger.

"Theta," he hissed, and then—

"Don't, they're with us!"

Theta was going to point out to Sam that yes, that was rather the problem, and then realised not only was she not talking about em she was not in fact talking to the Master at all. Ey didn't even need to look; now that eir nerves were no longer stripped raw and screaming it didn't hurt to be in the same room as Jack—and ey remembered him, now, remembered everything and tried not to be afraid because Jack was very human and very male and very much bigger than Theta but he was a friend and Jack wouldn't hurt em. It was incredible, being able to recognise people so easily now that the TARDIS was back, humming lovingly in the back of eir mind; but ey wouldn't have needed her help to recognise the hulking eleven-dimensional abomination that was Jack Harkness.

"Sure we can't shoot them anyway?" Tish did not look terribly impressed by the guards' newfound loyalty to the human race. "Just a little bit?" Lucy elbowed her lightly, as best as could be managed while she was clinging to her arm like a security blanket, and she rolled her eyes. "Fine. If we're all done up here, can someone please get Lucy a cough drop or something? She hurts to listen to."

"Thangs a lod."

"We're not quite done," Martha said, and there was steel in her voice that Theta didn't like. "What're we planning to do with him?"

"Or her, for that matter." Lucy flushed and shrank back at Sam's accusational look.

Mickey stepped forward. "Martha says she's with us. She was locked up just like the others."

Tish looked like she was ready to argue the point, but Sam accepted it. "Fine. What about the Master, though? And the guards. Tell me we're not just letting those bastards go."

"I zhould thing nod."

"All right," Donna said. "Someone needs to get her something, right now, she's making my throat hurt."

"Don't worry," Jack said with a winning smile. "I'll take care of every—"

"Focus!" Tish jumped as Martha snapped them all to attention.

Theta was fairly certain even the humans could feel the Master's rush of anger at that. "What now, Theta?" he sneered, stalking towards em. "All your precious companions—"

"Try and touch him!" And then he froze, because Martha and Mickey and Jack and… that red-haired woman seemed familiar… all four had guns trained on him and Sam and Natalie were making their way carefully up the steps towards them.

"Go to Jo, Doctor," Sam said evenly, and ey wished they would all stop calling em that, that wasn't eir name, that wasn't who ey was anymore. "Or Tish. We'll handle this. It's almost over."

"Come on, Theta," Tish called when ey didn't move. Ey couldn't, ey was frozen, ey didn't know what to do. "We can see what you've really got in those wardrobes, find you some more comfortable robes. You know Lucy likes to play fashion show."

"I lige to experimend wid possibilidies," Lucy corrected her with a cool flip of her dirty hair. Theta could sense her tension even from here, but ey appreciated the effort she was putting into sounding casual and… and wearing something that didn't have the Master's seal on it sounded awfully nice, and it was Tish and Lucy, everything was so overwhelming and all ey really wanted was to be somewhere safe and alone with them.

Tish held out her hand to em and ey took it uncertainly. The warm, human heat of it was more calming than anything and Theta wove eir fingers in between hers.

"Come on," she murmured encouragingly. Theta looked back to the Master, surrounded by humans with guns but not paying them any mind; he was staring at em with something that wasn't quite anger in his eyes. You've done something very bad, Theta, ey could hear in the back of eir head, and wasn't sure if it was eir imagination or not, but you can still earn my forgiveness. Tish must have sensed eir hesitation, for she tugged at em gently. Eir eyes left the Master's and ey let her lead em away.

The rest of the Resistance was talking amongst themselves, assigning duties and planning their next move. "I'll take care of him," said Jack Harkness, and he must have been referring to the Master; ey could feel the righteous anger he practically radiated.

"What are you going to do with him?" Theta asked, and if everyone hadn't gone silent at that ey would have been worried if they could even hear em, eir voice hardly more than a whisper (ey'd been right in assuming eir vocal chords would never manage to heal).

Sam's eyes fell.

"Let's get the kids," Martha said quietly. She'd come from one of the adjoining rooms holding a large first-aid kit. Jo and Cliff glanced between her and Theta, and while Jo made a little noise like she wanted to say something, the three of them left quickly.

Theta looked around at the others. "…What? What are you going to do with him?"

Natalie—it was Natalie, ey was quite sure now—stepped forward carefully, setting her gun on the ground. "It's going to be all right, Doc… Theta. Just go with Tish, all right? We'll deal with him. You've done what you can. Leave the rest to us, yeah?"

Tish was pulling at eir elbow now , gently but insistently, with Lucy at eir other side trying to nudge em along; but ey still heard Sam when she turned to Jack, nodded at the Master and said in an undertone, "Do it fast. For zir sake."

Ey started to ask "Do what?" but the words died in eir throat as ey came to the realisation (and it was obvious enough, it was even understandable, and ey should have figured it out sooner). "No," ey breathed, "no, no, stop, stop it, no, you can't—" Eir voice broke and ey jerked away from Tish in a panic.

"Don't." And it was the red-haired woman again and now ey could remember her, vaguely; Donna, ey thought her name was, and she was holding eir arm. For a moment ey panicked even more; but she was sad, not angry, and she didn't have a gun. "Theta, don't, just come with us. It's almost over."

"No," ey said frantically, "No, you can't, it's my fault he's like this, I can help him, I can, I can—he can be better!" Tish and Lucy were herding em away now, ey could feel their tension but they didn't understand. "I'm the only one left, I have to, stop him!"

Lucy slowed to a stop and ey was almost relieved until she said something to Tish, something quiet and broken that sounded like I need to watch and Tish reached out and squeezed her hand and then it was just her and Donna and ey was struggling against both of them even as ey knew they were only doing what they had to do because the Master was past saving now and ey could feel their misery, that they had to hold em back.

"I'm sorry, Theta," Tish whispered as she held em tucked in an alcove, safely down the hall.

Two shots rang out.

A pause.

And then a third.

Theta screamed.

"Theta all right?"

Tish slipped out of the dressing room, closing the door behind her. "Not really. Ey's better, though. Stopped screaming. I think Lucy coming back helped. Ey's sort of holding her hand now, I think picking up on… empathic projections, or something."

Right. Aliens. Time Lords. Wasn't the weirdest thing Donna had been involved in since this all started.

"Quite a set of lungs on that one," she commented.

Tish brushed a stray curl out of her face. "Theta doesn't have lungs," she said distractedly.

"Oh, of course ey doesn't." Donna threw her hands up. Aliens. Why not. Tish smiled a bit, but it was strained. Donna could understand that. She was exhausted. They all were.

The guards hadn't put up much of a fight; they'd considered putting them in the cells for the three-hour flight to a UNIT facility, but had decided it was too much trouble. Once Martha and the others had gotten back with Wiley and his sister (who had run back to him the moment the TARDIS storm had subsided), Mr Smith had simply locked all the doors to the lower levels. Someone else could deal with them. Theta had been in hysterics for a long time after the Master's death, and had finally calmed into an almost catatonic misery. Donna wanted to roll her eyes and write off eir heartbroken mourning for a man like the Master as insanity, but she couldn't. Theta was many things but ey was as sane as could be reasonably expected. She could understand why Tish and Lucy cared for em so fiercely.

"Lucy taking care of em, then?" she asked.

Tish nodded, glancing over her shoulder. "She needed to see the Master die. Had to. If he'd done to me what he did to her…" She shuddered. "Only way she could heal, really. But she really did love Harry Saxon. I think Theta understands that. Maybe better than I can." She sighed. "I should go back. You could…" She hesitated. "You could come in, I think. Ey kind of wants to know what's happening. And you don't scare em like the others."

Donna wasn't sure why that was; she'd only met em once, after all, and Sam and Jo had both travelled with em for years. It didn't make sense that the one ey didn't cringe away from would be the one ey shouldn't have had any reason to trust. She nodded and followed Tish into the room.

It wasn't large or ornate or anything like that; it had a table and a bench seat and some shelves covered in miscellaneous, unrecognisable things, and there was a door at the back which must have lead to the loo. Theta and Lucy sat together on the bench and she knew Theta was a good bit taller than Lucy but ey looked tiny and frail beside her dressed in only a thin white chemise, clasping her hand like it was a lifeline and shaking just enough for it to be noticeable.

There was a lot of things she could have said, a lot of things she probably should have said. Words to comfort, or words to distract. A bad joke that would get a half-hearted smile but it would have been a smile regardless and that was what mattered. "Theta," she said eventually.

Ey looked up at her through eyes which had no business being readable, as alien as they were. It was like looking at a spider and knowing it hated itself. Ey was a bit like a spider, she thought, with the eyes and the strange, shiny casing on eir fingers like armour. Her granddad's voice in the back of her head: It's more scared of you than you are of it.

"Do you… do you want to go?"

Lucy and Tish looked up at her in surprise, but she was watching Theta. And after a pause, ey nodded.